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^AL ORISIS-PEAOEPUL SEPARATION OR CIVIL WAR. 
AX 



ADDRESS, 



DKI-iyKUED IX 



jNd: XJ S I C H ^ L L, 

ox 

ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 



BKFOIiK THE 



<^i 



OF NEW HAVEN, 
BY THOMAS YEATMAN, ESQ. 

Pviblisliecl Ijy Reciuest. 



» ii » »-»" 



Our oounti'y'8 wflfnre is our first concern, 

And wlio ]ii-oniotcs tliat Ix'st, best proves liis duty." 



NFAV HAVEN: 

PRINTED EY THOMAS J. STAFFORD. 

18G1. 



THE NATIONAL OEISIS-PEAOEFUL SEPARATION OR CIVIL WAR. 



AN" 



ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED IN 



ON" 

ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 

BEFORE THE 



fil^tto^M«w S' 



or NEW HAVEN, 



BY THOMAS YEATMAN, ESQ. 



!Pu.blish.eci by Request. 



Our country's welfare is our first concern, 

And who promotes that best, best proves his duty." 



NEW HAVEN: 

PRINTED BY THOMAS J. STAFFORD. 

1861. 



COf^ 



h 



•e^^ 



7 







X, 



ADDRESS. 



I ACCEPT, with grateful pleasure, Mr. President and Ladies 
and Gentlemen, the invitation to address you upon this 
occasion ; and in perfect loyalty to my faitli as a Protestant, 
I can most cordially unite with you, gentlemen of the Hi- 
bernian Society, and with you, my Irish and Catholic friends 
and fellow citizens, in the services of this day, commemorative 
of your Patron Saint, Saint Patrick. Caniapnized by your 
Church as one of its most honored Apostles, the Patron Saint 
of a nation which he redeemed from spiritual darkness ; re- 
vered as a Holy Father by every son and daughter of Ireland, 
there is yet that in his life and labors which lifts him above 
the age in which he lived, the race which he served, or the 
Church whose spirit and mission he so nobly illustrated. For 
his memory belongs to a Universal Humanity. As well might 
Athens attempt to appropriate the teachings of Socrates ; or, 
England the heroic patriotism of Hampden ; or, the banks of 
the" Potomac, a Washington, as for any race, or faith, or 
nation, to localize, or sectarize the benedictions of such a life. 
The grandeur of an austere virtue ; the stern simplicity of a 
primitive faith and life in a corrupt age ; the beauty of piety ; 
heroic deeds for heroic principles ; the zeal of the missionary- 
ready in defense of his faith to wear the flame-shroud of the 
martyr ; — all who can value and vindicate these, may turn to 
St. Patrick, the Apostle of the Catholic, and the Patron Saint 



of Ireland, and claim a part, and a full part, in the glorious 
heritage. And we, of whatever race, or faith, familiar with 
the simple record of his life, his services, his trials, his perse- 
cutions, and his ultimate triumph, can yield him the tribute 
of our love and reverence as freely and as fully as if we had 
knelt at his feet and received the benediction and the blessing 
from his lips. Crowned as a Christian Missionary, bearing to 
man the divine message of pardon and redemption; crowned 
as a Christian Emancipator, raising a nation from the super- 
stition of idolatry, and the barbarism of slavery; crowned as 
a Christian Educator, introducing letters amid the deep night 
of barbaric ignorance, — his name is embalmed in the im- 
mortality of services which can be measured only by the 
interests of eternity. Appropriately, then, may the hand of 
a Protestant gather up the fragrant memories of a life de- 
voted to life's noblest and highest aims, which raised a nation 

" From nature up to nature's God." 

Appropriately, then, may the lips of a Protestant speak the 
praises of this Missionary, Emancipator and Hero, whose pure 
and holy life has borne his name across the valley of tlie ages, 
and after the lapse of fourteen centuries, on the shores of 
this new world, has brought us together this day, lovingly 
and reverently to honor his memory. 

Under other circumstances it would be a grateful privilege 
on this day, consecrated to the sons and daughters of Ireland 
by loving memories, to speak to you of your native land, 
amid whose hills and valleys rest, like the sweet dews of 
morning, the gentle memories of your early days. Strange 
and wonderful history ! A fair and beautiful land, given up 
for eighteen centuries to the war of factions, to the play of 
demoniac passions, to cruel oppressions, to barbarous codes 
enslaving the mind and soul of the nation, to the relentless 
hate of bigoted intolerance — scarcely a year through the cycle 
of these centuries, of peace, of prosperity, of happiness — the 
nation's harp forever hung upon the willows, and the daughters of 
Ireland wailing in sorrow and desolation. At last the clouds 
begin to break away, and the Providences of God rest gently 



and lovingly npon your native land. " The days of her 
mourning are past. Violence shall no more be heard in thy 
land, wasting nor desolation within thy borders, for the Lord 
has given unto thy people beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for 
mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- 
ness." The war of factions has ceased ; laws disgraceful and 
inhuman in their bigoted intolerance have been repealed; 
equality of riglits and privileges recognized and protected ; 
material prosperity stimulated and advanced. The once deso- 
late fields now teem with fatness, the orchard smiles on the 
hillside, the harvest waves in the valley, and the song of the 
reaper is heard in the silence of the wilderness. Peace 
stretches her white wings over the nation, and for the first 
time in the history of Ireland, content and plenty, prosperity 
and happiness, thanksgiving and praise, lie down as blessed 
angels at every door. 

" Thus Erin, dear Erin, thy winter is past, 
And the hope that lived through it lias blossomed at last." 

Lovingly and tenderly could I linger upon the story ; but 
Mie momentous interests of the present hour weigh upon my 
heart, and press upon my lips for utterance. I desire to 
speak to you to-day, of Ouk Country, its perils, its dangers, 
its hopes and fears, the sources of its weakness and strength. 
I desire to consider the National Crisis, the question of the 
hour — peaceful separation, or civil war. Li the discussion of 
this mighty theme I would imitate the example of the great 
Athenian who never addressed an assembly of his countrymen 
without first appealing to the gods that he might utter no 
words which should bring discredit upon the cause of truth 
and justice, or injury to the best interests of his country. 

''When the mariner has been tossed for many days in 
thick weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails 
himself of the first pause in the storm, the first glimpse of 
the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the ele- 
ments have driven him from his true course." Memorable 
words, first spoken in the great debate when the theory of 
nullification and secession was first advanced. I repeat 



these words to-daj, when secession, from a bold, yet barren 
theory, has sprung into a practical fact — bearing division and 
revolution as its results. Let us imitate the prudent mariner, 
and take our reckoning, and find how far, as a nation, we 
have drifted from our old moorings. What is the condition 
of our country ? The plural unit destroyed, the bands which 
have bound these confederated States under a Federal head, 
broken. Seven States — two of the old thirteen — have with- 
drawn from the Federal government. A Provisional govern- 
ment established, with all the machinery of Constitution, 
Officers, and Laws. The national property has been seized. 
Our forts and arsenals captured and held by soldiers of se- 
ceding States. The stars ajid the stripes lowered — the Pelican 
and Palmetto — emblems of revolution — wave in their place. 
The Federal laws have been repealed or defied. States pre- 
sent the appearance of military camps preparing to resist, by 
arms, the enforcement of Federal authority. Trade, ever 
sensitive to revolution, has been paralyzed ; millions upon 
millions sunk in the general panic. The border States lay 
down conditions for their continued fidelity, and in them 
there exists a feeling of alienation, distrust, and prejudice, 
which may lead them, at the shadow of provocation, to unite 
with the Southern Confederacy. Revenue laws have been 
passed discriminating against the commerce and the industry 
of the United States. Thus far the architects of ruin, of 
wickedness and folly, have had their way. " Our national 
flag, that spread as the wing of a mighty empire over the 
land and sea, has fallen as a blighted constellation from the 
sky. The North American Republic, with all its glorious 
memories and hopes, has disappeared, in its unity, from 
history." 

How rapidly have these " dire calamities " been precipi- 
tated upon us ! The labors of centuries of preparation swept 
away in tlie circle of a few months. Like the changes of a 
day in spring, when we see the morning mist rise in wavy 
gold to greet the ascending sun, but gather around his setting 
in grim and angry thunder cloud. 

What causes have produced these results ? The proprieties 



of this occasion limit and restrict me, and admonish me that 
I must touch lightly, generally, and necessarily superficially, 
upon the causes which have produced the National Crisis, for 
fear that I might offend by reflecting upon the influences, 
policies and interests of political parties. I will briefly con- 
sider these causes under tw^o heads : 

1st. The Moral, or Irrepressible. 

2d. The Political, or Artificial. 

In the magnificent portico of St. Peter's, at Rome, there 
is a statue of a female radiant with celestial beauty and 
strength ; clad in impenetrable armor, she treads beneath her 
feet the bodies of tyrants and oppressors whom she has slain ; 
she wields in her upraised arm a flaming sword, the scabbard 
thrown away ; her step is ever advancing, and her eyes fixed 
upward on the heavens. It is the statue of Truth beautifully 
symbolizing her eternal warfare with falsehood, oppression, 
and wrong. It typifies the moral element in national and 
individual life. It is a visible embodiment of the great truth 
that all questions, moral in their nature, can be settled only 
upon the foundations of truth and justice — that all questions 
dealing with human rights and duties, until recognized and 
accepted, must, from tlie very law of their being, wage an 
irrepressible conflict in society and government. But this 
irrepressible conflict need not necessarily find its only de- 
velopment in revolution and destruction. It may master the 
mind and conscience as gently yet as resistlessly as the 
light breaks into the darkness of night — at first the faint 
day-beam streaking the eastern horizon, and then hour by 
hour deepening into the golden splendors of mid-day. It may 
come in the terrific sweep of the French Revolution, over- 
throwing thrones, religions, and social order, or, it may come 
in the passage of a beneficent law, as in the edict of the 
Russian emperor, peacefully raising tw^enty millions of human 
beings from the degradation of serfdom into all tlie dignities 
and rights of freemen. The normal development of this moral 
principle is peaceful. It is only when precipitated, resisted, 
perverted, or corrupted, that it wins its triumph amid con- 
vulsion and desolation. The questions which have and still 



agitate our nation, are essentially moral questions, embracing 
all of human rights and duties. They have within them the 
irrepressible vitality of a moral life. " The fundamental 
cause, because the moral cause, of our present agitation and 
insecurity, is the anomalous existence in a republican and 
democratic government, based on respect for human rights, 
2)olitical equality, imiversal representation, free speech, public 
discussion, general enlightenment, and progressive reform, of 
an institution, exactly contradicting every principle and senti- 
ment in our Declaration of Independence, and reversing in 
its spirit, operation, and tendencies, the theory, objects, and 
workings of our Constitution, and the inspiration of our 
national life." And yet I claim that there is no providential 
necessity that the solution of this moral conflict should be in 
the tragedy of national dissolution. The nation has been 
brought to its present position only in part through the action 
of moral causes. Political or artificial influences now precipita- 
ting, now resisting, now perverting, now corrupting this benefi- 
cent principle of action, until it has opened beneath our feet the 
dark gulf of disunion from whence " demoniac forms emerge from 
the seething deeps, that shall wander forth to mock and mad- 
den through a funereal century." I attribute the present con- 
dition of our country chiefly to causes political or artificial, 
which wisdom, prudence, virtue, and self-sacrificing patriotism, 
could have averted. Let us briefly consider them. 

Most potent among the many causes, political or artiflcial, 
have been the ignorance, misunderstanding, perversion, and 
misrepresentation of the sentiments of the respective sections. 
The masses have been controlled in their political sentiments and 
action by misapprehension, by artful perversion, by systematic 
and persistent agitation of sensitive and irritating questions, 
and by unscrupulous misrepresentation of the principles of their 
opponents, " The South, through the systematic perversions 
of its political leaders, have been taught to believe that the 
controlling party of the North had for its single mission the 
subversion of its acknowledged constitutional rights ; that the 
accession to power of a Northern President would be signal- 
ized by attempts to liberate slaves by the direct intervention 



of the general government, or to stimulate in their midst the 
appalling terrors of servile insurrection." John Brown, the 
rebel chief of Ossawattomie and the fanatic of Harper's 
Ferry, was received as the t}ye of Northern sentiment. 
" Extracts from the Northern press, and quotations from 
Northern speeches, violently torn from their context, rep- 
resenting the meaning of their authors about as truly as 
a thread of canvas raveled from a picture presents the con- 
ception of the painter, were scattered broadcast throughout 
the South." The hearts of our Southern brothers have been 
estranged from us by the wicked perversions and misrepre- 
sentations of those to whom they have looked up to for guid- 
ance and direction." For thirty years the seed has been 
ripening for this bitter harvest. For thirty years these infa- 
mous appeals to popular prejudice and sectional hatred have 
been with devilish and malignant cunning whispered into the 
Southern ear. As the arch fiend in the " Paradise Lost " of 

Milton, 

" Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
Assaying by his develish art to reach 
The organs of her fancy," 

so have these ambitious and unscrupulous leaders approached 
our Southern brothers, " inspiring venom " and raising 

— " distempered, discontented thoughts, 
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires ;" — 

believing they have been betrayed — thrown into the delirium 
of fever, when the mind loses its true balance, and all is dis- 
tempered. 

The North, more intelligent, with greater facilities for accu- 
rate information, with interests infinitely less sensitive and dan- 
gerous, and therefore with less excuse for passionate and preju- 
diced excitement, have too often pictured the South as a re- 
gion groaning in slavery ; ruled by merciless masters, sunk in 
sensual indulgence and heartless indiiference, in the midst of 
cruel wrongs and inhumanities. In the fair tapestry of free- 
dom, spread out before us, there has too often been an ugly re- 
verse to the web, that is, hatred to the slaveholder. Ten 
thousand springs of falsehood and perversion have filled the 



10 

very atmosphere with noxious vapors, and turned persistently, 
for years, by politicians, into one and the same channel, have 
at length swollen into a current so mighty, as to bear away 
whole communities into utter disbelief in the patriotism^ honor, 
and justice of any portion of the South. 

Yes, ignorance and misapprehension of each others' pur- 
poses and policy, misrepresentation of each others' characters 
and sentiments, the systematic agitation of a peculiarly sensi- 
tive institution, have plotted the ruin of our country. "Such 
are the causes, political and artificial, why this glorious vision 
of constitutional liberty, which has filled Christendom with 
light and hope, has begun to shrivel like a parched scroll. 
Such the apology for attempting to bury free institutions in 
the waves of revolution, and leave the annals of self-govern- 
ment, like a bloody-buoy on the sea of time, warning the na- 
tions of the earth to keep aloof from the mighty ruin." There 
has not been an hour through the long years of agitation, in- 
stigated by selfish and ambitious leaders, that, if we could 
have swept from the earth these fiendish prompters of mis- 
chief, and laid our hands, liorth and South, upon each others' 
hearts, that we would not have found them beating with a 
mutual love, strong, generous, sacrificing, embracing the 
whole continent in the arms of a patriotism as broad as 
the clasp of the two oceans which wash its opposite shores. 
God help the Republic, when its golden memories, its 
glorious aspirations, and its teeming future, are in the 
keeping of the knaves and demagogues of politics. Tliat 
low, mercenary, Machiavelian herd, that gather in the 
dens of darkness and sin, of intrigue and caucus, to project 
the programme, and distribute the parts of that great play, 
whose sublime issues are the glories of our country, and the 
welfare of the world. God help the Republic, when the dis- 
ciples of Asmodeus and Mephistophiles — the one the father 
of letters, the other the father of lies — are too often seated upon 
editorial tripods, reveling in the licentiousness, miscalled, the 
liberty of the press, and filling the land with the insidious poi- 
son of sectional passion, sectional prejudice, sectional false- 
hood, and sectional hatred. Ignorance, misunderstanding, and 



11 

misrepresentation of each other's sentiments, stimulated by 
the selfish schemes and interests of party, and wielded by am- 
bitious and unscrupulous leaders, are the chief causes, politi- 
cal or artificial, which have reduced our beloved country from 
the glory and the praise, to the pity and reproach of Christen- 
dom. 

And, now, what of the future ? Let us attempt to cast its 
horoscope, and learn whether these chills, these shadows, these 
mists along the mountains, these faintly showing stars, are the 
hopeful twilight of morning, brightening into dawn, — or a 
mournful vesper-light, deepening into niglit ? Let us attempt 
to catch, here and there, amid the gloom, the gleam of friend- 
ly stars, to guide us through the heavy darkness of the present 
night. What of faith, what of hope, is left to us ? I answer, 
much of both, but conditional. The future, under the Provi- 
dences of God, depend upon ourselves, — upon the policy which 
we may adopt, to meet and overcome the vexed problem of 
the present. Our action is confined within the narrow limits 
of two policies, — the one of peace, the other of war, — the one 
of coercion, the other of magnanimous Christian submission to 
the stern exigencies of the crisis. Seven States have with- 
drawn, and established an independent government. I shall 
not stop to inquire if this was an act of treason, rebellion, and 
revolution, or the legitimate exercise of a constitutional right. 
I accept the fact, that these States have declared that they will 
no longer submit to Federal authority, or recognize the bind- 
ing obligations of the Constitution. They have broken the 
bands which made us one nation. They have done it with a 
" unanimity of sentiment, with a coincidence of opinion among 
their people, which is without a parallel in the history of rev- 
olutions, and the simple question presented to us to-day, is this, 
whether, throughout the limits of those States, which thus for- 
mally, thus orderly, thus by enactments of representative 
bodies, of highest capacity known to the civilized nations,— 
conventions duly authorized and properly elected to consider 
this very question, — have declared themselves independent of 
us, we are prepared, by force of arms, or by means equivalent, 
to maintain our supremacy, and enforce our laws." 



12 

The argument of coercion, by "svliicli I mean the exercise of 
the necessary authority to enforce obedience to law, represents 
a widely various policy, as to the means to be employed. One 
class would employ an indirect coercion, by blockading the 
ports, and collecting the revenue, by sending a ileet to the 
mouth of every harbor, and not allow a vessel to enter, with- 
out enforcing the revenue laws of the government. Another 
class propose to re-take the forts and public property, and to 
hold them, at every hazard. Another class propose to enforce 
all the laws, and to exercise every power inherent in govern- 
ment, to carry out this purpose. And still another class, and 
the most numerous, are for testing the strength of our institu- 
tions, and to prove that we have a government of sufficient 
force to preserve its own integrity. Let us separately examine 
these various plans. It is claimed, that to blockade the ports, 
would destroy the industry, and paralyze trade, and, by the 
stern necessity of self-preservation, compel rebellious States to 
return to their allegiance. That it would desolate a State, not 
by the sword, but by a process similar to placing animal life 
within an exhausted receiver, cutting off the very sources and 
springs of life. That it could be done, without the necessity 
of taking a human life, or shedding a drop of blood. It is a 
plausible, but fallacious claim. To blockade the ports and har- 
bors of the seceding States, would involve us in inextricable 
embarrassments. Judged l)y the rules and principles of inter- 
national law, a blockade is a declaration of war, — a direct act 
of war, and can only be maintained by one nation at war with 
another. It would lead to perpetual collisions with foreign 
powers, claiming the rights of neutrals. It would require the 
navy of the United States to be quadrupled, to enforce it. 
The Southern coast would have to be girdled with guns, ready 
to be used at every attempt to evade it. It would be resisted 
by force, where force could be employed, — continual conflicts 
would occur ; acts of retaliation would be instigated ; States 
would be invaded ; privateers would sweep the seas, desolating 
Northern commerce; armies would be collected, and in less 
than six months, civil war would sweep, with all its desolations, 
througli the Republic. Practically it would fail. Not only 



13 

would harbors have to be blockaded, but the interior border 
line would have to be guarded by a line of posts, to maintain 
which an inmiense force of armed men would be necessary. 
The frontiers must permanently bristle with forts and bayo- 
nets. And how long before war would flash along such fron- 
tiers? A spark w^ould ignite it. Again, this line of posts 
would have to be formed in the border slave States, still true 
to the Union, but who would never allow force to be employ- 
ed against their seceding brethren, from whom they may dffer 
upon the doctrine of secession, but for whom they feel all the 
love that can spring from a common birth, a common interest, 
and an indissoluble destiny, in domestic institutions. To 
blockade the j)orts, if not a declaration of war, would inevita- 
bly result in war. In spirit, it is coercion, — the employment 
of force, to compel obedience. It is captivating to the public 
mind, from the apparent gentleness of the means employed, to 
secure a great result. But it is war, and only differs from the 
bold declaration of war, as the stealthy approach of the sapper 
and miner differs from the impetuous charge of the rude Cos- 
sack. I oppose this policy, because it is impracticable, and 
would defeat the very end designed. I oppose this policy, be- 
cause it would inevitably plunge us into all the horrors of civil 
war. 

The next plan proposed by the advocates of coercion, is the 
re-capture of the forts, and the re-possession of the public 
property, seized by the rebels. I sympathize intensely with 
this sentiment. When I heard that our forts had been cap- 
tured, our flag lowered and dishonored, our property seized and 
confiscated, our just and gentle authority spurned and defied, 
there was in my heart a mingled feeling of resentment, prompt- 
ing immediate redress and punishment, and of humiliation 
and sorrow, which made me place my hand upon my mouth, 
and my face in the dust ; and when I heard that Major An- 
derson stood behind the battlements of Fort Sumpter ; that 
over its frowning bastions he had unfurled the stars and stripes 
of his country's flag, and that it would wave in triumph, as 
long as there was a heart to bleed or die in its defense, tliere 
was a feeling of renewed manhood within me, which caused 



14 

my heart to beat with exultant pride, and my lips to thank 
and praise God, that patriots were yet left to ns, to defend the 
honor, majesty and dignity of the Kepublic. When I heard, 
but a few weeks since, that a veteran soldier, who had been 
crowned with the gratitude of the nation, for his distinguish- 
ed services in two wars, who had been raised from the ranks to 
the command of a Major General, had broken his faith, and 
turned over his department to a revohitionary State, I felt it 
to be the duty of the Government, at every sacrifice, to follow 
the traitor, if necessary, into the very halls of the Southern 
confederacy, to seize him, immortal through his infamy, and 
consign him to the merited punishment of the scaifold. These 
feelings were the promptings of a generous and honest indig- 
nation. But calmer reflections convinced me that the conse- 
quences of such a course would but confound the innocent 
with the guilty, and, in its results, prove disastrous to liberty 
itself. Consider for a moment, the results of such a policy. 
These forts will not be surrendered. They are considered as 
necessary to the security of the seceding States, to be held at 
every sacrifice. Let me illustrate by the forts in Charleston 
harbor. They not only command the commerce of the State, 
but if their guns were turned upon Charleston, it could be level- 
ed to the ground in twenty-four hours. As South Carolina has 
seceded, justly or unjustly is not now the question, self-pres- 
ervation demands that the forts should be held, at every sacri- 
fice. You send an army and navy to re-take these forts. 
They will be met by an opposing army, harassed and resisted 
at every step ; battles will be fought, and a civil war inaugura- 
ted, which no true man can contemplate without a thrill of 
horror. This policy is impracticable, unless we are willing to 
accept it with all its consequences. 

Another class of the advocates of coercion, animated by a 
patriotism which I profoundly respect, insist that coercion is 
necessary to maintain the authority of government — that we 
must prove to the world that we have a government of suffi- 
cient strength to enforce its laws and preserve its own integ- 
rity. The arguments by which tliis policy is advocated are 
difficult to answer. They appeal to our loyalty, to our nation- 



15 

al pride, to our national security. The sublime definition of 
the French philosopher, that " Government is justice armed 
with power," expresses a general conviction that it will not 
suffice for a constitution to be perfect in wisdom and justice, 
but that it must also be armed with power to enforce its 
authority. A government without the power to enforce its 
authority, or exercises authority hy permission^ is contempti- 
ble. A government that permits its authority to be defied is 
in danger of dissolution. A Kepublic without the inherent 
strength to vindicate its integrity, is in peril of subversion by 
anarchy or despotism. I recognise these truths and accept 
them. Yet there are times when national dignity, national 
integrity and national honor, can best be maintained by appar- 
ently yielding to the storm and accepting the exigencies of the 
crisis. History is full of illustrations, how an unyielding 
adherence to the enforcement of law, to testing the strength of 
government upon an unwilling people, has been visited by the 
most significant retributions. Maintain the prerogatives of 
the crown — yield nothing to rebels — the ship money and 
poundage must be collected, said Charles the First, in his un- 
yielding pride, and his head fell by the ax on Tower Hill, and 
the drama of the Protectorate illustrated the triumph and genius 
of Cromwell. No compromise with traitors — enforce the laws, 
said James the Second ; its retribution was an ignominious 
flight, a retreat to St. Germains, and William, of the Nether- 
lands, ascended the British throne. Enforce the laws — test 
the strength of government — retake the property seized at Con- 
cord and CharVestown — blockade the ports — collect the reve- 
nues — enforce taxation without representation. Let Wash- 
ington, Jeflferson, Sherman and Adams, meet the penalties of 
treason, said George the Third. The attempt was made, and 
from the fields of the revolution was achieved our national 
independence. Enforce the laws — maintain the government — 
no yielding to constitutional provisions and securities — down 
with the traitors, said Lewis the Sixteenth, and the head of 
King and Queen, and Prince and Noble, fell beneath the 
flashing blade of the guillotine. Maintain the government — 
enforce the laws — no liberty of conscience for the Catholic— 



16 

hunt the priest from hovel to hovel — punish him with stripes 
and the stocks if he dares to administer the sacred rites of his 
faith — offer premiums to apostasy — set brother against brother, 
said Protestant England, through her laws against Catholic 
Ireland, and Ireland sank, and writhed, and wailed beneath 
the spiritual bondage ; but the cry of repeal, repeal, ran from 
hill and valley, from mountain and j^lain — the British throne 
was shaken, and the great O'Connell lived to see the divine 
principle of toleration crowned in all the majesty and pro- 
tection of law. I do not assume that there is a strict analogy 
in principle between the position of seceding States and the 
historical illustrations I have cited. But the moral is com- 
plete — let nations beware how they attempt by force to test 
their strength and enforce their laws and constitutions upon an 
unwilling people. As the highest statesmanship consists not 
in always carrying good principles to their inexorable logical 
results, but in keeping the end ever in view and in doing the 
best which circumstances will permit ; so may the truest and 
highest policy of the nation be found, not in arbitrarily exer- 
cising its power to enforce obedience, but in accepting the 
exigencies of the crisis and adopting the best course which the 
general interests — moral and material — will permit. And if 
history is Philosophy teaching by example, may we not profit 
by her warning voice speaking from the ruins of dismembered 
empires, that the spirit which leads nations at all times and 
under all circumstances to enforce its authority and compel 
allegiance to its government by military power, may defeat the 
very object it designed, and may feel the recoil in terrific and 
disastrous eclipse. But let us examine this policy more in its 
details. These States have withdrawn — established an inde- 
pendent government — repealed the Federal laws, and organ- 
ized an eflicient army to maintain and vindicate their inde- 
pendence. They have elected a President who unites to the 
experience of a statesman, the tried valor of the soldier, who 
has won the highest honor on the field of battle ; — a calm, 
resolute, determined man. He asks for peace, but has pledged 
liimself, and in this pledge he will be sustained by his people, 
to maintain, if forced to do so by war, the independence of the 



17 

Soutliern Confederacy. How, then, do you propose to enforce 
the Federal laws and to maintain and test the strength of 
government ? You answer, by superior force ! Dealing with 
revolutionists, force is the only power by which you can hope 
to test the strength of the government, to maintain its laws 
and enforce its authority. You must rely upon the strong arm 
of military power. Collect your armies, march them into the 
seceding States, what then ? They will be met by an opposing 
army fighting on their own soil, animated by a fierce and 
determined hostility, in defense of their own peculiar institu- 
tions, in support of their OM'n government and in the main- 
tenance of the inalienable right of revolution secured to them 
by the Declaration of Independence. Can you subjugate the 
South by force ? I acknowledge the overwhelming superiority 
of the North in population, in physical and material power. 
I look forward with a feeling almost of terror for the South, 
when in lier madness she accepts or throws down the gage of 
battle. 

•God help her if the tempest swings 
The pine against the pahn. 

But the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong. " Surround the South with a girdle of fire, block up 
her ports, desolate her fields, defeat her armies in every engage- 
ment, and she would still be unconquered, because invincible 
in her determination never to yield obedience to a government 
which she may wickedly and madly, but which she still abhors 
and defies. The Federal Government may conquer the sece- 
ding States, may subdue them, may obliterate them ; but no 
po\^^r less than Omnipotence can compel them to do that 
which is indispensable to the preservation of the Union — that 
is, to revolve within the sphere appointed for them by the 
Constitution." But grant for the argument that you could 
subdue them, grant that you could by force compel their obe- 
dience to Federal authority. Would our government, as its 
spirit and inspiration demands, be any longer a government 
of liberty, regulated by law resting upon the love and the 
consent of the people ? "Would it not rather be a government 
commanding the allegiance of eight millions of its subjects by 



18 

the power of the bayonet ? Would this be obedience to the 
spirit and letter of the Constitution ? What is it that endears 
the Constitution to us ? Its dead, cold words ? The parch- 
ment it is engrossed upon ? No ! it is the spirit which it 
creates and upholds. It is the life-blood of a generous, national 
sentiment, which, flowing from it, beats at the extremities as 
soundly as at the heart — which permeates and vitalizes all that 
vast network of interest spread over the land, which in variety, 
complication and extent, finds no parallel but in that beautiful 
and wonderful system of ducts and channels tlirough which 
the warm currents of the human frame are propelled and circu- 
lated. The spirit of the Constitution is the assent of loving 
and loyal hearts who, recognizing its benedictions, would 
defend it with their lives — but the hour when its letter has to 
be enforced by armies and navies of Federal power, is the 
hour when the "Muse of History may lay her hand on the 
heart of the Bepublic, that has once beat so proud and strong 
with glorious memories and hopes, and find its convulsive 
throb stilled and pronounce it 'dead;' and wretched ages 
beyond, like those that waited on dead empires past, shall enter 
to bury her." 

If either of these plans of coercion should be adopted, if I 
am correct in my argument, that war would inevitably follow, 
it must not for an instant be supposed that the seceding States 
would stand alone. Force would arouse sympathy. There is 
a principle in the human bosom that repels force with force. 
This feeling is electric in the South. An appeal to arms — the 
planting of the first battery on Southern soil — the first drum- 
beat of a Federal army would unite her citizens as one man. 

" The ties of blood are strong, 
Stronger than oaths, and mightier than the law." 

And the contest would not be twenty-six States against seven, 
but eighteen against fifteen. The mouth of every conserva- 
tive Union man would be closed forever, and counsels of 
peace would be drowned in the voice of our brother's blood 
crying to us from the ground. The most conservative of the 
border slave States have given expression by legislative 



19 

resolves to tliis universal sentiment of tlieir citizens. Wlien 
the Governor of New York insolently transmitted to the 
Legislature of Kentucky the tender made to the President of 
the State Militia to aid in Federal coercion, Kentucky, a Sta,te 
which in her noble devotion to the Union did not even sully 
her honor by considering the question of secession, hurled 
back in unanimous and defiant resolve the message, that when- 
ever such aid was accepted for such a purpose, she would gird 
up her lions, take down her shield and resist it to tlie last 
extremity. Tennessee, by an overwhelming majority, declared 
her devoted allegiance to the Union, refusing to call a Conven- 
tion even to consider the question of secession ; yet, by legisla- 
tive action, resolved that federal coercion must and will unite 
the South as one man in opposition to a policy so " cruel, inhu- 
man, and unjust." Missouri, in whose bosom the beneficent seed 
of emancipation is working slowly, but ineradicably for her 
deliverance, with unparalleled unanimity expresses her devotion 
to the Union, her abhorrence of secession, but her inexorable 
determination if coercion is attempted to give all that she has 
of wealth, of strength, of life, and blood, in defense of her 
Southern brethren. Let no advocate of coercive measures 
delude himself with the belief that if his policy is adopted 
secession will be confined within its present limits, or that the 
border slave States will retain their connection with the 
Federal government. Coercion will unite the South and sepa- 
rate them from the North by a gulf of fire. 

I have thus endeavored to view the policy of coercion in all 
its bearings, in all its lights and shadows. But the oracle has 
given out no uncertain response. Its only answer is — coercion 
is war. And what is war ? I can present no more graphic 
picture of war, than by repeating the old German fable, which 
tells us that a yoimg and gentle angel besought a venerable 
patriarch among the bright ranks of the blessed, to show him 
the green and beautiful earth which God had made so good and 
of which he had heard so much. They came down hand in hand 
and hung over a scene of enchanting natural beauty. But the 
French and English fleets were engaged there, and tlirough the 
sulphureous canopy that hung over them like a pall, fierce 



20 

flashes of fire darted, and thunder pealed, and the groans of 
the dying — the pitiful plea for quarter — the exultant shout of 
the victor, mingled as they fell on the ear. Oh, said the 
young angel to his venerable companion, you have deceived 
me ; I asked you to show me the earth, and you have brought 
me to hell. No, no, was the reply, these are brothers of earth 
who are contending — brothers in blood — brothers in Christian 
faith and hope. Such is war. It maketh the gentle angel to 
veil his face in pity ; it changeth into a breathing hell this 
earth intended by its beauty and benedictions to show forth 
the praises of God. But there is another war of which this 
conceit of the German poet is but a feeble type — whose picture 
is traced in deeper, darker, and more lurid colorings — it is 
civil war — the war of brothers. I shall not even attempt to 
picture the wickedness and woe of such a strife. In such a 
contest it would be difficult to imagine which were the greater 
sorrow — victory or defeat. And well might the victors and 
the vanquished sit down together on the battle-field and weep 
over the result. "When the little tribe of Benjamin had greatly 
sinned and had been well nigh exterminated by the combined 
force of Israel, there was no exultation but lamentation, deep 
and agonizing. "And the people came to the house of God 
and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices 
and wept sore ; and said, O Jehovah, God of Israel ; why is 
this come to pass in Israel that there should be to-day one 
tribe lacking in Israel ?" And the children of Israel repented 
them for Benjamin their brother, and said "there is one tribe 
cut oif from Israel this day." It was in the very hour of 
triumph that the victors remembered Moses and the Red Sea — 
the wilderness, and the manna, and the rock that followed 
them — the cloud by day and the pillai- of fire by night, which 
seen from ever}^ tent door, was tlie banner of God extending 
its protection to Benjamin as well as to' Judah. Would that 
Benjamin had not sinned. "Would that we had treated 
sinning Benjamin with the wisdom of gentleness and meek- 
ness. "And the children of Israel again repented them for 
Benjamin their brother." And when the descendants of 
Washington and Adams, of Jefierson and Hancock, of Pinck- 



21 

ney and Sherman, of the fathers who fought at Bunker Hill 
and Saratoga and Yorktown, at Lnndy's Lane and New 
Orleans, shall engage in deadly strife, will not the hour of 
triumph be the hour of lamentation and mourning? "Will not 
the victoi-s veil their faces and be ready to exclaim with the- 
Psalmist king over the body of his erring, rebellious, but still 
beloved son, " Oh, Absolam, Absolam, would that I had died 
for thee?" Think of a contest hi which victory is well nigb 
the heaviest of curses? But if these States are to be separated 
by the sword, civil war will evoke a power to mingle in the 
strife, the bare contemplation of which fills the mind with 
horror. I saw this power represented in the sketch of an 
Artist of genius. He drew a picture representing the citizens 
of the South as fishermen, standing npon the sea-shore and 
casting their nets into the waters of the gulf; drawing up a 
massive vessel labeled secession, bearing npon its lid the 
warning, "open, at your peril, for I contain the instrument of 
your destruction ;" with cunning and busy skill they open the 
lid when there leaps forth a gigantic monster, black as night ; 
striking the chains fi-om his limbs, he soars- over the land, 
scattering balls of living fire and broods of venomous ser- 
pents, whose every sting is death. Tlie Southern fishermen 
sink to the earth in agony and despair, and the background of 
the picture is lighted up with the lurid colorings of a general 
conflagration. It is the Genh of Servile Insukeection-. 
The sketch of the Artist in conception, a Prophecy. For this 
hideous power yet controlled, but ever restless, requires only 
the surges of civil strife to have breathed into it a life — brief it 
may be, yet terrific in its consequences — its pathway marked 
by brutal lust, sensual passions, and indiscriminate slaughter. 
The blood of a Southron flows in my veins — ^the South is the 
land of my birth — the home of my kindred, and amid its 
flowers sleep the graves of my children. I love that land, I 
know it well, and I know that if the Korth and South meet in 
the clash of arms, the slave will rise in his madness — and at 
every fireside, and around every hearthstone, over the old man 
and the young maiden, the loving mother and the tender child 
at her breast will be unbared to strilce to the heart the arm of 



22 

savage vengeance. God of infinite mercy, I pray thee in the 
agony of the thought to save this nation from the desolation of 
such a curse. Yet such, in my judgment, must be the inevi- 
table consequences resulting in civil war, if any of the various 
plans of coercion should be adopted by the Federal govern- 
ment. 

Fellow-citizens, I present to you a wiser and juster policy — 
a policy gentle in its spirit, loving in its nature, resistless in 
its influence, divine in its benedictions — the policy of peace. 
If determined upon it let the seceding States depart in peace ; 
let them establish their own government and empire, and 
work out their destiny according to the wisdom which God has 
given them. Let me present the argument. It is the policy 
of wisdom"; the best to secure the end designed — the union of 
these States. " If armies could preserve this Union, half a 
million of armed men would spring up in a night. If money 
could preserve it, our teeming soil would leap with joy to yield 
a golden harvest. If blood could maintain it, our young men 
and maidens, our old men and children, would, with a crimson 
flood, from their very hearts, swell every stream that waters 
our plains." But money, armies, blood, will not maintain the 
Union — it is broken. But justice, reason and peace, when the 
delirium of passion has spent its force, may reunite us, puri- 
fied by the fire through which we have passed. Force might 
preserve the empty form, but the immortal spirit of Liberty 
and Union, which is love, sympathy, sacrifice, would be dead 
forever. Its life is peace — its grave, civil war. 

" Gentle as angels' ministry, 
The guiding hand of power should be. 
Which seeks again those cords to bind. 
Which human madness hath rent apart ; 
The hand which tunes to harmony, 
The cunning harp whose strings are riven, 
Must move as light and quietly 
As the meek breath of summer heaven, 
Which woke of old its melody." 

Again, the policy of peace is the policy of justice to those 
true, loyal, and devoted Southern hearts, who have never failed 
in their fealty to the Union, and who, amid the present folly, 



23 

wickedness and madness of secession, wait, and watch, and 
pray, in sublime faith, for the hour of redemption. 

What sympathy shall we extend to these noble men, who 
stand serene, amid the storm, unshaken in their fidelity, and 
waiting only the hour to come when they may strike, through 
emancipation, for truth, justice, liberty, and union ! Shall it 
be force ? God forbid ! There is a beautiful custom prevail- 
ing on the shores of the Adriatic. There the wives and 
daughters of the fishermen come down to the sea-shore, about 
sunset, and sing their national songs. After singing the first 
stanzas, they listen awhile for an answering melody from off 
the water, and continue to sing and listen till the well known 
voice comes, borne on the water, telling that the loved one is 
almost home. How sweet to the weary fisherman, as the 
shadows gather around him, must be the songs of the loved 
ones at home, that sing to cheer him, and how they must 
strengthen and tighten the links that bind together these hum- 
ble dwellers by the sea ! Let us, in this hour of our national 
trial, imitate this touching and beautiful example. As the 
shadows deej)en, let us cheer the hearts of these noble 
brothers, by the assurance that we wait for their return 
with patience, sjmipatliy, love, and peace, and soon an an- 
swering voice, amid the blind fury of the storm, will fall upon 
our ear, in encouragement and hope. Be patient yet a little 
while, my brother, — the storm rageth, but its fury will soon be 
spent, and then the morning breaketh, of an unending day of 
affection, liberty, and union. It will be so. As a Southern 
man, I pledge you my faith that the seed of resurrection are 
now sown and germinating in the bosom of the South. It 
lives in the heroic hearts who labor on in faith and hope, for 
a true liberty. The South possesses every element neces- 
sary for its own regeneration. Do not, then, I pray you, fear 
to trust them. " The spirit of the elder and better time has 
not forsaken them. They still stand beside the graves of their 
fathers, and keep the vigils which their eyes keep no more." 
The gloomiest hours of darkness have not extinguished the 
serene and steady stars in this firmament. I have a calm and 
holy faith in the coming of that Providence to the South, 



24 

which shall rescue it from danger, and satisfy our yearning 
souls. Its chosen instruments are now at work. The week 
day does not deny its smile, nor the Sabbath its divine bene- 
dictions. I see these harbingers of a more illustrious era. I 
hear their mild but persuasive voice. I feel the soft pressure 
of their breath, and the tokens dropped from their annointed 
hands, fall upon our mysterious pathway." The elect sister- 
hood of Emancipation, Republicanism, and Christianity, will 
open our future, and if allowed, through peace, to work out its 
development, we will soon, from the South, catch the first 
tones of that exultant cry, " The morning cometh." 

Again, the policy of peace is full of the precious promises of 
hope, which, like the ancient cestus of beauty, is radiant with 
transforming power. 

What can we not endure, 

When pains are lessened by the hopes of cure ? 

The end we seek is the perpetual union of these States. 
The emplojrment of coercive measures, inevitably evoking the 
slumbering energies of war, in turn to deepen into civil strife, 
will not secure it. Disunion would be inevitable, irretrieva- 
ble, and perpetual. "War might rage within om* borders for 
ten long years, — thousands by thousands might die by the 
sword, and yet the end for which all this power had been em- 
ployed, would not be gained, — the final result would be, that, 
wearied and sickened with the strife, we would enter into a 
treaty of peace, consenting to separation, and acknowledging 
the independence of the Southern confederacy. But peace, 
with a diviner wisdom, accepts the end from the beginning, — 
leaps over the intervening agony of civil war, and seeks, by 
gentleness, patience, forbearance, and a holy faith, which look- 
eth with hope, unto the end, — to dispel prejudice, — to mollify 
hatred, — to disarm injustice, — to touch and penetrate the heart, 
through confidence and love. Peace may veil her face, in view 
of the perils, dangers, humiliation, and disgrace of the present, 
but hope lighteth her heart with the promise of better days to 
come. Oh, my Countrymen, let us accept this policy. " For 
peace can alone preserve liberty — peace can alone re-construqt 



25 

this Union — peace can alone retain friendship — peace can alone 
save the South from utter and hopeless ruin. If our South- 
ern sisters will go — if they demand, as the prodigal, their por- 
tion — if they will leave the family mansion, let us signalize 
their departure by tokens of love — let us bid them farewell, so 
tenderly that they will be forever touched by the recollection 
of it ; and if, in the vicissitudes of their separate existence, 
they should desire to return, there would be no pride to be hu- 
miliated, no wounds inflicted by our liands, to be healed, — no 
brother's blood crying to us from the ground," "We can afford 
to be forbearing and magnanimous, conscious of our own in- 
tegrity, — firm as the everlasting hills, in the purity of our in- 
tentions, in the justice of our cause, — secure in overwhelming 
numbers, we can calmly wait upon the steppings of Provi- 
dence, in this crisis. If our Southern brothers have, in their 
mad folly, accepted as their mission the protection, extension, 
and perpetuity of slaver}-, remember they but throw them- 
selves against the eternal counsels of God, and tliat the grasp 
of an infinite justice is upon them. If they are sowing to the 
wind, they must reap the whirlwind. We can afford to wait. 
The hour has come when we may vindicate our title to be 
called a Christian nation, by accepting the principles of divine 
law, as the principles of our 'national life. To feel that the 
discretion of a nation deferreth its anger, and it is its glory to 
pass over a transgression." That we are not to be " overcome 
of evil, but to overcome evil wuth good." " To love our breth- 
ren, wdio seek to do us evil, — to be pitiful and courteous, — not 
rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but, contrariwise, 
blessing." "We are to rise to the heighth of a true Christian 
magnanimity — menaced, defied, imperiled, we are to say, " Let 
there be no strife between us, for we are brethren. The land 
is broad enough for us both. Let us part in peace, — let us 
divide our common inheritance, adjust our common obliga- 
tions, and preserving as a sacred treasure, our common princi- 
ples, let each set up for himself, and let the Lord bless us both. 
A course like this, heroic, sublime, glorious, Christian, would 
be something altogether unexampled in the history of the 
world. It w-ould be the wonder and astonishment of nations. 



26 

It would do more to command for American institutions the 
homage and respect of mankind, than all the armies and fleets 
of the Republic. It would be a victory more august and impo- 
sing than any which can be achieved by the thunder of can- 
non, and the shock of battle." A victory in direct recogni- 
tion of the divine law, given to nations as well as to individuals, 
to retm'n blessings for curses, love for enmity, kindness for in- 
juries. 

Let us adopt this policy of peaceful separation, — let us ac- 
cept these principles of patience, forbearance, gentleness, se- 
renity amid provocations and injuries, confiding in the influ- 
ence of time, to bring light out of darkness, reason out of mad- 
ness, and though the present may be surrounded with trials 
and dangers, there is a silver lining to the angry cloud, the as- 
surance of a bright and peaceful future. For through them 
may we realize, in the beautiful inaugural language of our 
President, that, " though passion may have strained, it has not 
broken the bonds of our affection. The mystic cords of mem- 
ory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot's grave, to 
every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, 
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 
God bless the President, for his noble faith ! God grant that 
his administration may be guided by its spirit ! 

Adopt this policy, — accept these principles, and insti- 
tutions, anomalous and inconsistent with the inspiration of our 
national life, will be swept away, and then, disenthralled, pu- 
rified, emancipated ; with liberty, not for a race or class, but for 
humanity, — slavery consigned to the Gehenna of a universal ex- 
ecration ; every element of discord and division banished, this 
mighty brotherhood of States will roll on in glorious un- 
ion, "bearing each other's burdens, sharing each other's re- 
verses, sympathizing in each other's trials, rejoicing in each 
other's prosperity, and all clustering at last around the car of 
a common liberty, like the hours in the fresco of Guido, 
around the sun." 

And when that hour cometh, — when passion, and madness, 
and wickedness, and folly, have been stilled in every heart, — 



27 

when the cloudf?, wKch now hang so loweringly and heavily 
above us, are swept from the heavens, or weep only in gen- 
tle and reviving showers, t)»ev,in tlie first golden hours of that 
re-union, may we stand beneath the stars of our national 
constellation, as they " sing together with joy," and with the 
poet's verse, exclaim : 

" Are ye all there ? Are ye all thtj-e ? 

Stars of my country's sky ? 
Are ye all there ? Are ye all there, ■ 

In your shining homes on high ? 
' Count us ! Count us,' was their answer. 

As they dazzled on my view. 
In glorious perihelion, 

Amid their field of blue. 

" I cannot count ye rightly ; 

There's a cloud with sable rim. 
I cannot make your number out, 

For my eyes with tears are dim. 
Oh ! bright and blessed Angel, 

On white wing floating by, \ 

Help me to count, and not to miss 

One star in my country's sky ! 

" Then the Angel touch'd mine eye-lids. 

And touch'd the frowning cloud ; 
And its sable rim departed. 

And it fled with murky shroud. 
There was no missing Pleiad, 

'Mid all that sister race ; 
For the Southern Cross gleam'd radiant forth, 

And the North-Star kept its place." 

In the name of Humanity, in the still more sacred name 
of the Christ of God, let us speed the coming of that day. 

Sons of Ireland, Adopted Citizens, Brothers, we have received 
you with open and generous arms, into the bosom of the Re- 
public. We have greeted you as brothers, we have shared 
with you the priceless inheritance of our free institutions, won 
for us by the blood of our fathers. The altars of your faith 
have been guarded and cherished by our Constitution, Your 
industry has been protected and crowned with abundance. 
Your interests have been our interests. "We love Ireland, we 



,28 



Uyeher ehiUren. In this tour of oii'- extreiM% and peril, 
may we not look to you in perfect faith, to guard with us this 
Union, the dear mother of us al^, from the wricked parricides 
who seek to destroy her ? Descendants of Montgomery, of 
Emmett, see to it that no harm befalls the Republic ! 



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